Bizarre Bazaar

A few sailors and a coach invited me to the market to go check out the local shopping (really local…) and I peeled myself away from the computer for a couple hours to join the journey. The first thing we saw when we entered the four-story bazaar was a huge poster of Ben Barger, U.S. Olympic windsurfer, posted by the escalator! Motivated by the Olympic vibe, I was inspired to purchase an Olympic sports-themed watch, complete with the sailing logo at four o’clock. As I was checking out some amazing gold sneakers with red, white and blue glitter stripes, I got a call from one of the sailors who said, “I don’t care what you’re doing. Drop it and come meet us by the escalator.”

They wouldn’t explain what was going on, but were giddy like little boys so it was clear something was up. We went to a nice handbag store and they asked to see a specific type of expensive purse. We were told to wait five minutes and then I can’t really tell you what happened, but we might as well have been trying to buy stolen kidneys.

Here at the village we’ve seen sunshine two out of eleven days, and I’ve heard that up in Beijing they are shooting rockets into the clouds to disperse some chemicals that make it rain and clear up the smog. Pretty impressive technology! That was the gossip at dinner last night, where we ate with five Chinese locals and they showed us typical Qingdao fare at the “Home of Boiled Fish.” We tried kelp, liver-veggie-soup and some dark green jelly/tofu thing. (It is impossible to eat jelly/tofu with chopsticks). The consensus among the Westerners at the table was that the sesame bean ball was the best thing there. Though they said it was filled with red beans and it looked more like black mush in a clear jelly ball crusted in sesame seeds, it was relatively delicious!

View of the boat park from my village room

View of the media center tower (my office) from the room

Schoolgirls sang in our lobby. Sounds carries quite a few floors at 8AM.